Suspected Fulani herdsmen yesterday invaded the Ebete Usha Ward in Agatu Local Government Area of Benue State and killed 20 people – 17 farmers and three Jukun hunters.

This also came as suspected Boko Haram members murdered 18 people said to be firewood and charcoal fetchers at Koshebe general area of Jere Local Government Area of Borno State.

The Commander, Operation Whirl-Stroke (OPWS) of the Nigerian Army, Major General Adeyemi Yekini, confirmed the Benue killing.

He said the attackers accessed the Agatu community through Loko in neighbouring Nasarawa State.

In the attack, which started at 1a.m. when people were deeply asleep, scores of women and children were displaced, while many others were wounded. Schools, hospitals and other economic and political activities in the area were grounded.

A survivor of the attack, Daddy Seni, whose father was among those killed alongside his siblings, said he left his father at Ebete while heading to Aloko for fishing when he received a phone call from home asking him to turn back, that his father had been shot by Fulani herdsmen.

Seni said on reaching where his father was lying down at a pool of blood, he tried to take him to the hospital, but the man said:

“My son, don’t bother about me and your siblings again, ours has finished; we can’t survive these gunshots, run for your dear life to tell others about this.” Then he gave up.

Seni, who narrated the incident to the Agatu Local Government Chairman, Hon. Alhaji Oyigocho, who rushed to Ebete with some executive members of local government and security men, said he hid in the bush and heard the killers speak Fulani language while trying to run from the scene.

He said among those murdered were three Jukun men who were hunting animals, while two others sustained serious gunshot wounds and were rushed to a nearby hospital for treatment.

Nice comment iron bar,, is it not shocking to hear some heartless people say killings have been ongoing even before PMB came to power? Then I asked if that is now a license for more killings and if that is a reason to allow people to be killed at will without government intervention. It’s very worrisome how people of this age have suddenly lost their sense of good judgement in matter relating to security in the country. I prayed God almighty open the veil covering their eyes.